“So be it.” Seth started to say something else, but stopped. His brow furrowed with what looked to be puzzlement.
“Marcus?”
Lisette gasped at the tentative inquiry and looked toward the hallway that led to the back of the house.
Ami stood there, pale and fragile, her coppery curls forming a disheveled halo around her face. A demure white nightgown fell to her knees. Her limbs were thinner than Lisette remembered, her cheeks gaunt. Her body seemed to bear none of the extra weight or roundness a woman who had just given birth should have. Her tiny feet were bare against the cold bamboo floor. Her hands curled into fists.
Lisette looked to Marcus, who had gone so pale she feared he might pass out.
Roland must have feared the same, because he hastily took the baby from Marcus and cradled her against his chest.
Marcus rose slowly and staggered a few steps toward his wife as though afraid she were an illusion. “Ami?”
She nodded.
Rushing forward, Marcus took her in his arms and crushed her against him.
“Careful,” Seth cautioned as he and David rose.
Loosening his hold, Marcus sank to his knees in front of Ami, buried his face in her chest, and wept.
Ami’s green eyes glimmered with moisture as she wrapped her arms around him and rested her chin atop his head. Her gaze sought Seth. “Is it . . . ? Did the baby . . . ?”
Seth circled the table, pausing long enough to take the babe from Roland. Then he and David approached the couple.
As soon as Ami saw the small, swaddled bundle in Seth’s arms, her face lit with hope.
“Your daughter,” Seth told her with a smile.
Tears spilled over her lashes and trailed down her cheeks. “She’s okay? She’s healthy?”
He nodded. “There’s no trace of the virus in her blood.”
Marcus gained his feet and took his daughter from Seth to present her to his wife.
“She’s beautiful,” Ami professed.
“Just like her mother,” Marcus rasped, drawing her into a family hug.
Zach squeezed Lisette’s hand under the table.
Blinking back tears, Lisette rose and joined the others who migrated over to the couple and welcomed Ami back.
Ami was so thrilled about the babe and so concerned about Marcus that her usual shyness, which bordered on fear (a lovely parting gift from her captivity), fell away. She even smiled through the multiple embraces the immortals and their Seconds foisted upon her.
Everyone spoke at once. No one minded.
Even the baby, awakened by the cacophony of voices surrounding her, took it in stride, peering around with curious eyes.
Lisette nearly wept when Ami held her baby for the first time and received a toothless smile.
“Zach,” a voice spoke behind Lisette.
Turning, she saw David issue Zach a hard look.
“Come with me.”
Unfazed, Zach smiled at her and gave her back a quick caress. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
Lisette watched with trepidation as the two slipped out the front door.
Zach followed David several miles away to a meadow that was little more than a small break in the dense trees that covered David’s land.
“I’ve been with Seth for thousands of years,” David said without preamble.
“Yes,” Zach acknowledged when David seemed to expect a response.
“I know pretty much everything there is to know about him. Which means I know everything there is to know about you.”
Zach shook his head. “You may think you do, but you don’t know me, David.”
“I know you can be slain.”
Surprise flitted through him. “Are you threatening me?”
“I may not be as powerful as you,” David said, taking a step forward and daring to crowd him. “But trust me when I say that, if you betray Seth, you will never see me coming.”
“Trust me when I say I will.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure. Even Seth can’t always tell when I come and go. And, should I not succeed, I shall summon those who will.”
Zach stiffened.
“That’s right. I will broadcast your every movement to the Others until they come for you.”
That was a threat he couldn’t ignore. “You wouldn’t know how to reach them.”
“Oh, I know how to reach them. I’ve done it before; remember? When Seth lost it after his wife and children were slaughtered. And I can and will do it again, should you drive me to it.”
A sobering thought. “You would endanger Lisette?”
“No. I would endanger you.”
“Once they know what she means to me—”
“They won’t touch Lisette. She’s one of Seth’s. And their fanatical determination to remain apart from the rest of the world and to stay off the proverbial radar will keep them from creating the chaos of violence that harming her would spawn.” A chilling smile tilted his lips. “They’ll leave Lisette alone, turn all of their wrath upon you, and will ensure you never see her—or anyone else—again. There will be no escaping them a second time.”